Glitter in the Air
by filesfreak4life
Summary: A fic showing Lucas and Peyton through the years as well as a glimpse into their minds as they came to know each other. Set to Pink's "Glitter in the Air". Peyton's POV


D and A, this one is for you!

Okay y'all, this is probably going to be the longest one-shot in the history of ever for me, but I fell in love with another song, and you will now reap the Leyton benefits. It is told in reverse, which is weird, with the ending being in present/future time… just give it a chance. I was driving in my car one night and this song came on and it was one of those moments where time stood still and I flipped out because I LOVED the lyrics… so here goes.

Lyrics to Pink's "Glitter in the Air"

**Have you ever fed a lover with just your hands…**

It's these moments that make my life what it is… simple wonderful moments with the husband that I have probably loved since I was sixteen. He said I had unruly curls and chicken legs the first time he ever saw me. He also said that I was an angel… the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Yes, this is the man that I married, the father of my children, and the love of my life.

"You know that it tastes better this way…" he says, holding a chocolate covered strawberry towards me.

"Really?"

He nods slowly, and I let myself lean in and take the strawberry from his hands and into my mouth, and I pause for a moment. I take in the taste of sweet fruit and chocolate with a hint of salty skin. "You may be onto something with this, you know?"

He smiles, and his eyes sparkle in that subtle way that I know is only meant for me to see.

"I'm so glad that Brooke took the kids tonight, because we have been in desperate need of a night to ourselves for a while."

I look down for a moment, taking in the day and the evening that have come and gone so quickly. "Yeah, we were due for some Lucas and Peyton time, weren't we?"

He doesn't say anything, choosing to lean across the table to kiss me. Then the food was forgotten, the candles were hastily blown out, and the discarded clothing was left for tomorrow.

**Closed your eyes and trusted, just trusted…**

"Look at me." He says, wiping my forehead with his hand as I shake my head firmly. "Peyton, look at me!"

"Lucas, I can't do this… how can I do this?"

I look up and see the tears streaming in his eyes as he looks down at me, broken in front of him. It was a long shot. We both knew that this was one miracle too many when I felt the pain in my right side. With Sawyer, there was no pain, just blood… lots of blood. With Anna, she was our hope… she was perfect and everything went just as planned, with no complications.

"We lost him, Peyton… we lost him."

I shake my head again, still not understanding how this can happen to us. He was two months away from being ours, two months away from blue blankets, excited big sisters, and a houseful of crazy friends and relatives that we call family.

"Why?" I ask, not to Lucas, but with my head tilted upward toward the sky in a gesture that nearly looks like begging.

"He's needed somewhere else right now, Peyton. God needs him somewhere else…"

"It's too hard, Luke."

"We can do this, just close your eyes, and breathe… I've got you. I've always got you."

**Have you ever thrown a fist full of glitter in the air…**

"Mommy, what does that mean?" Sawyer turns to me with a confused look on her face.

"It means that mommy and daddy are having a baby boy!"

"But how do you know for sure?" she asked with her brow knit, "The baby's in your tummy and you can't see it."

"Well, the doctors have special machines that can look inside a mommy's tummy to see if it is a boy or a girl." I tell her, hoping that the explanation will work for the six-year old.

"You're sure it's a boy?"

I nod and she frowns, which obviously has me concerned, "Sawyer, you were excited to be a big sister again."

"I know, I just thought that you could only have girls."

I laugh, trying to remember that she is just six and the only thing that she knows is that I gave her a baby sister before, "Well, mommies and daddies can have boys or girls."

The frown sets in again, "I just don't want him to be mad…"

"Why would he be mad?"

She grabs onto my hand, pulling me towards her bedroom, and what I see in there makes me gasp. It is the gasp of a mother who just walked into a room that she swore was clean this morning, but was now in shambles. Sawyer Brooke Scott really did get her artistic abilities from me… she also got her messiness from me as well.

"Sawyer Brooke, what were you doing in this room!"

"I was making this…" she says, holding out a piece of pink paper decorated to the best of her ability with pink glitter and hearts all around it. My heart melts that the little girl was obviously thinking so much about her baby sister.

"I can see what you mean… this is definitely a card for a baby girl."

"Can we fix it, mommy?"

"Well, maybe we can add some different glitter, do you have any blue?"

She starts nodding up and down and I see it happen before she even mutters the oops. Blue glitter now mingled with pink all over the white carpeting in the young girl's room, and she looked up with wide eyes at me, knowing that she made her mess even bigger.

"We have certainly made a mess here, haven't we?" I say, waiting for a reaction of any kind from my daughter. "Since we can't possibly make it worse, we might as well enjoy it, right?"

That earned me the second confused look in that hours as my daughter watched me grab a fistful of glitter from the carpet and sprinkle it into her hair before throwing the rest up in the air.

"Mommy!"

"It's a glitter cloud!"

"Mommy, you're making a mess!" she cries, but I can hear the laughter bubbling underneath and threatening to result in that hearty belly laugh that only a child can provide.

"There was already a mess, mommy is just making it more fun!"

We go on like that for a few minutes before we hear the clearing of a very male throat and both freeze in our tracks.

I point to our daughter with a smile on my face and glitter in my hair, "She started it…"

"Mommy!"

All Lucas can do is laugh, choosing to kiss both of us, and pick Sawyer up to go grab the vacuum. "It's okay, Daddy will help clean it up." I hear him say as he walks down the hallway to the closet next to our bedroom.

Then I looked down to see Sawyer's card, covered in pink and now blue glitter… perfect for a baby brother.

**Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, I just don't care…**

I was petrified the day I realized that I was late. I was about three weeks late, nauseous, and moody… that is when it hit me. Lucas found me in front of the television in tears after watching some Lifetime made for TV movie that I would normally not be caught dead watching.

That leads me here, with my left hand in the right of the man I love, waiting for a piece of plastic to tell us our fate.

"Peyton…"

"I know what you're thinking, Lucas, and I can assure you that I am thinking all of those same things."

"I can't lose you, Peyton. I almost did once. I thought that I was going to have to raise Sawyer alone. I had to carry you into the hospital with blood dripping down my arms. I can't do this again." He says, standing up from his spot next to me on the bed.

"Keep your voice down, because if that little girl wakes up, it is your fault, and you're going to have to deal with her until she falls back asleep."

He sits down again after a moment or two more of pacing in front of the bed. "Peyton…"

"Again… I know what you're thinking."

We sit in silence for a few minutes, before realizing that it was time to go into the bathroom and check what was sitting on the counter. I stand up to go get it, and Lucas pulls me back, pulling me down on top of him for him to press a bruising kiss to my lips.

When he lets me go, I walk slowly into the bathroom to find the clear words that pull out mixed emotions in me.

The emotion that won out was just heart shaking fear, and the tears instantly started to fall down my cheeks in waves. "We're pregnant…"

He calms me down, rubbing circles on my back while holding himself strong. And when I look up, I see a look on his face that doesn't make any sense to me.

"Lucas…"

"You know what? Who cares… we beat the odds once, why can't we beat them again?"

"Lucas, the doctor said that there was a great chance that the same-"

"I know, and that scares me… but do we want to live in fear of what could happen, or do we want to show fear that we could care less, and we're not going to let this beat us down?"

"Says the man who was freaking out just a few minutes ago?"

"Come here…" he says, pulling me in the direction of our hallway, stopping to peer into the room where our daughter lay sleeping.

"Everything could have been different that day, Lucas."

He takes a moment, almost as if he was thinking about what it would have been like if the day had turned out differently. If he would have lost me. If we would have lost Sawyer. "I know… but look at what we got."

"I'm scared."

"We can do this…" he says at a whisper as he pulls me to him and I lean back into his chest.

**It's only half past the point of no return**

I remember the day it all died down. I had been out of the hospital for a week, Sawyer was still brand new to the world, and everyone was gone. There was a final push to get Mia's album done, leaving Haley in the studio til all hours of the night. Nathan was in Charlotte getting trained for his new role in the Bobcats. Karen was on a plane back to whatever foreign country she and Andy and Lily were traveling in. Brooke was in L.A. with Julian.

That left Lucas, me, and Sawyer to our own devices. There were no more moms or namesakes around to help us.

Our first night was miserable.

"You think she's okay?" I ask, laying in bed next to my husband.

Husband. It's a week in and it still feels strange to say in my thoughts. Right, but strange.

"She's fine." He says, with a small giggle that makes me smack him across the chest.

"Well, your mom isn't checking on her tonight, Lucas… it's just us."

"I know that… and it's fine."

"I'm going to go check on her." I say, getting out of bed and making my way quietly down the hall to the nursery.

She was there. I still can't believe that, but she was there, sleeping peacefully in her crib. I could see the small rise and fall of her chest as her lips quivered in dreams.

I feel him even before he puts his arms around my shoulders, "I told you she was fine."

"I'm a mess, aren't I… a total dork for this."

"Yes, you are… but that is why I love you Peyton Scott."

I smile then, and he smiles back at his handy work, "You know that I love it when you say that, right."

"That's why I said it."

I take one more look back at our sleeping daughter before he pulls on my hand to come back to bed for the night.

"She'll be fine."

Nearly an hour later, I'm wide awake and I hear him laugh.

"Okay." He says, getting out of bed.

It takes me a minute to figure out that he is not just out of bed, but out of the room. Then I throw the covers back and go in search of him, finding him covering couch cushions with a sheet on the floor of the nursery.

"What are you doing?" I whisper.

"Promise not to tell?"

"Promise?"

"The only one who knows about this is Haley, so do you really promise?" he asks again, which has me even more confused, but I nod anyways. "The first three nights when you were in the hospital and I took her home, I couldn't leave her. I was afraid that she was going to suffocate. Haley laughed at me and told me that she would be fine, but I wouldn't believe her."

"Much like I won't believe you now?"

He nods before continuing his story, "so I got the cushions off the couch, covered them with a sheet and got myself a blanket."

"And you slept on the floor of the nursery…"

"Are you mad I kept trying to tell you she'd be fine?"

"I'll get the pillows…" I say back with a smile, walking back to the bedroom.

**The tip of the iceberg, the sun before the burn…**

"Do you know how much I love you?" he asks me one night as we're curled up on the couch watching old movies together.

"I think I have an idea, yes."

"I don't think you have any idea how much I love you."

I turn to look at him then, wondering what brought this random course of emotion through him. "Lucas…"

"It was the first time in five years that I forgot what day it was… it didn't hit me the second I got up this time around."

I think for a moment what he could possibly be talking about, and my eyes go wide. The school shooting. Me. Keith. Jimmy Edwards. The fifth anniversary of that day was today.

"Lucas, I'm sorry…"

"No… I just realized that it didn't have to define me anymore, or us as a family. My first thought when I woke up was you and the baby." He says, caressing my stomach that was just starting to show. "It wasn't thoughts of this day and what it took away from me. It was thoughts of you and this baby and what has been given to me, and I just realized that it was all because of you… you coming back into my life."

I know that tears are starting to well up in my eyes, because that is what my hormones have been doing to me, but I can't help it when he Is looking at me like the most treasured possession he could ever possess. His look changes a few minutes later though, changing to a frown after a few minutes of silence and watching the screen in front of us.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing… I'm good."

"Luke." I say, deadpanned because I know for a fact that the man is lying to me right now.

"I'm wondering about the bad…"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm wondering what is going to happen now. We finally got together, are engaged, and having a baby. It's perfect. It's like one of those perfect days that you spend outside all day and then can't move the next morning without someone slathering an entire aloe plant all over your body because of the sunburn."

"Okay, you're making me regret wanting to marry a writer for that metaphor. Lucas, everything is going to be okay. We're pregnant, we're engaged, and nothing is going to go wrong."

**The thunder before the lightning, the breath before the phrase…**

I remember that night, coming home after basically collapsing in the studio on a stormy thundering evening. All I knew was that something was off. My mind reeled with the possibilities, first going to all of those negative places. Cancer like Ellie. That is what I was set on. I had cancer. I wasn't going to get my happily ever after, I wasn't going to even get the chance at it.

Then the doctor calls telling me that it certainly wasn't that, but they did find something. That was when everything in my world changed.

The something that they found was a pregnancy. Mine and Lucas'. Lucas and I were going to have a baby. Lucas and I were pregnant.

I cry for a few minutes because I would be lying if I said that I wasn't so scared that I could barely breath for a few minutes. Then I cry for a few minutes because I am so relieved that it isn't any of those things that I thought that it was. I was so sure that it would be something horrible that I would have to call my fiancé and tell him.

But instead, I'm picking up the phone and calling him, trying to form any kinds of words in my mind of how to tell him that he is going to be a father.

Of course I make a comment that I know sends him into a tailspin of confusion, and then I spit out the words in such a way that has me wondering if hormones start getting out of whack this early in a pregnancy.

Then I have to take a breath, telling him that I am the happiest person in the world with what I just found out. There is nothing that I am more fine with right now than the reality of starting a family with Lucas Scott.

**Have you ever felt this way…**

When he called me last night from the airport, I thought that I was dreaming. I spent the better part of the past year… no… the past four years waiting for him to ask me to marry him again. I knew that my answer the first time was not the answer in my heart, and I desperately wanted to change it for him and for me.

"You're amazing." He says, stroking my hair after we found each other again after so many years.

"Lucas, stop."

"No… I need you to understand where this came from Peyton."

"Luke…" I say, knowing everything that he is going to say to me and knowing that I am powerless against him declaring anything else.

"I really has always been you, Peyton. I was just to stupid and too hurt to let myself believe any different. The second you came back, Lindsay didn't stand a chance. You should have known that from the start. I was a coward when I asked her to marry me, because I know that there is no one else I want wearing my ring. Then, when I saw the river court tonight, it all came crashing back to me. When I came to see you, all I could see was this amazing woman, who despite everything that I've done to her still loves me. You were strong through all the crap that I put you through, and there is nothing in this life that is going to take you away from me again."

The tears are freely flowing down my cheeks, landing on his chest as I lay there taking in the words that he is saying to me. I believe every last bit of it, knowing in my heart that he really was feeling these things all those years. Lucas and I have always been lost souls, and when we were together, it was like we were finally found.

"I know… and I love you even more for that, Lucas Scott."

"You know that I wrote Peyton Sawyer will become Peyton Scott all over my notebooks in seventh grade."

"You were such a dork…"

"Nope… I knew then that I would marry you some day, and now I can't imagine feeling like this for the rest of my life."

**Have you ever hated yourself for staring at the phone…**

He left. After Jamie was found and Dan got smacked around a bit, Lucas Scott ran. That wasn't a Lucas Scott move, it was a Peyton move. It wasn't fair.

He is ditched at the altar by a woman who swears he is still in love with me, but he still said "I do." How could he have said that to her if he was still so in love with me?

It has been two weeks, one day, and a handful of hours since he left, and I admit that the greater part of this time has been spent staring at the phone, waiting for him to call.

If I was the reason for him leaving, then I want an explanation. I want to know why it all happened like that. I want to know why I had the greatest feeling of relief when I saw a woman that I barely knew leave him at the altar with a flourish of white beading and lace out the door.

"You're doing it again." Brooke says, walking into the living room to find me with the television on but staring between the house phone and the cell phone.

"I'm not doing anything but watch a movie." I say, trying to focus my attention back to the task at hand.

"P. Sawyer, I have known you for long enough to know when you are brooding and pining after Lucas Scott. He'll come back, you'll get married, and you'll have tons of babies."

"Brooke." I say, trying to shut her down, but knowing that it was hopeless.

"Peyton, you know that everything she said was true. Even Haley told me that the book he wrote was yet another love letter to you. It's meant to be, Peyton. Why can't you see that?"

"If it is meant to be, then why is he halfway across the world? If it is meant to be, then why did he say "I do" to her on the altar? If it is meant to be, then how could he have even proposed to her?"

"Peyton, if it wasn't meant to be, then he would be miserably married to that woman right now, pining after you."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"And until then, you're going to stare at the phone in hopes that it is him?"

She's right of course, because that is exactly what I'm going to do. As pathetic as it is, that boy has a pull on me that can't be explained in any way. However, I still won't give her the satisfaction.

"Shut up, Brooke."

**Your whole life waiting on the ring to prove you're not alone…**

Living in Los Angeles was stupid. I should have come home, and I wonder every day what would have and could have happened if I had come home after that summer. Instead, I threw it away… in more ways then one. Lucas proposed a few years ago and I told him that I couldn't right then and there. I wanted to marry him… I still do, but I couldn't say yes right then. I needed time.

Now, I'm sitting here, staring at the phone again, after breaking up with a man that I dated for about a year, and I'm wondering who I have in my life.

I lost Haley and Nathan when I moved simply because they were Lucas' first… well, not Nathan, but he has plenty to worry about with Haley and Jamie. They don't need me.

Brooke is in New York making a name for herself, and doing so quite successfully. We stopped calling each other every day. Every now and then I send her an e-mail and get a short response about how she's going to come visit me in Los Angeles soon. The only Brooke Davis I see in Los Angeles is the billboard I pass on the way to work every day.

Work isn't what I thought it would be either, it's corporate, and not at all about the artist. It's about money, so I can't seem to figure out why I'm even here right now.

I want to go home… I want to see him again… I want what I had with all my friends again… I want just one person to call and say that I should come back to Tree Hill.

**Have you ever been touched so gently, you had to cry…**

After Sundance, he came back. I knew that he would, but it was a long weekend where I had time to do a lot of thinking.

"Peyton, I want to talk about this."

"Well, you made it pretty obvious that you didn't really want to talk about it last time. You left me here, without letting me get my say in, and you told me we were done without another word. How is that fair to me?"

I can tell that is going to set him off just by the way his jaw sets before he is about to speak, "Fair? You want to talk fair, Peyton? Is it fair that I have been playing second fiddle to a man that lives on the other side of the country for the last year? Seriously, you want to talk fair."

"Julian, I told you that it was nothing… it doesn't mean anything." I tell him, trying to convince him of the boldface lie that is coming through my lips right now. My mind is screaming at me and telling me that he's right. It is telling me that I can't be with Julian, because my heart belongs to a blond boy in North Carolina with blue eyes and a squint that still makes my heart skip a beat.

I've thought about this too long, because he walks over to me then, putting a feather light touch to my cheek.

And I cried.

He loved me. I could feel it in the way that he touched me then, trying to hold on to what we had. I would lie if I said that I didn't love him back. But it wasn't the same as how I felt about Lucas. It never would be.

"I get it. I do, Peyton. I just love you… but I know that you aren't going to be happy until you get the boy from the book. I can't keep being your second choice when I know that your first is probably sitting around waiting for you to come back to him."

"Julian, I didn't mean-"

"I know you didn't. It's okay, Peyton."

**Have you even invited a stranger to come inside…**

I met him the day Lucas and I broke up or whatever the hell it was that happened the night he proposed. I wouldn't even consider that really meeting him though, because he just muttered a few words and realized that all I wanted to do was ignore him.

The day of the book signing we met again, this time with a full introduction and a minor get to know you session.

Julian Baker then became this part of my life that I still don't understand. In so many ways he reminds me of Lucas, but at the same time, there is something so different about him. He gets my passion for the music industry because he feels the same way about the film industry. And he's the first person since Lucas to really get me.

The day he found me crying in my apartment was the day I finally let him in. We had already been on a handful of dates, but never would I let him get past the surface of anything. That was how I did things, and that's how I have always done things.

"What's wrong?" he asks when he sees my still teary eyes when I open the door.

"Nothing, I'm fine." I say, wiping at my eyes and shaking it off.

He takes me out for dinner that evening to a nice place that we haven't gone to before, and for a moment I can see myself with him. It was the oddest sensation that only one other person has made me feel. Of course it was Lucas.

"So, earlier, when you were lying to me about being okay, what was that?" he asks as he takes my hand for us to walk the few blocks back to my apartment.

"Julian, it's nothing."

"Well, clearly it is something, because you seem to be avoiding the topic. That is classic Peyton."

"What do you know about classic Peyton. You barely know me."

"Now, I don't think that's true!" he starts, and then I interrupt him, realizing that I could jump.

"My mom died on this day when I was eight."

He didn't say anything, he just pulled me into him, and I let the walls come tumbling down. I cried into his shoulder, finally releasing all the feelings that I had bottled up inside me all day. I used to have Lucas for this day. He would sit on the phone with me and let me cry.

Now I had Julian, a stranger from the copy room… but someone who seemed like so much more to me.

**It's only half past the point of oblivion…**

I want to forget the past day of my life. I want to wake up in my apartment and go to work again, with Lucas coming in and surprising me. I want to ignore the phone call I know will come during dinner. I want to say yes when he pulls out a ring and gets on one knee.

I can't focus myself because I don't know what just happened.

When I woke up this morning, I was alone, with a CD next to my head on the pillow in a hotel room that I know he checked into because he thought we would be celebrating. Celebrating an engagement that didn't happen. Maybe it won't ever happen.

I shudder at that though, knowing that there is nothing that could hurt me more that to think that I just screwed up my whole world.

**The hourglass on the table, the walk before the run…**

I want to run screaming from the hospital… screaming at the top of my lungs to a God that I am still not sure exists. If God was out there and as great as we think he is, then why would he do this to me. Why would he take away so much and then do it again?

But I stay. I stay by his side, watching the hours ticking away.

"You know that staring at him or the clock really isn't going to fix anything, right?" she says walking into the room and sitting on the chair opposite from me.

"I know, but I can't leave him."

She nods, "So the two of you finally came to your senses about each other then?"

A small smile escapes at her words, knowing that aside from Haley, Karen was the one who knew Lucas best. "Apparently so…"

"Peyton, this isn't your fault, you know that right?"

"Brooke made some comment yesterday about me loving people and it always turning bad. I finally tell Lucas and this happens."

"Well, I know for a fact that Lucas didn't take his pills before that game, which is what caused this to happen. So unless you told him to do that, you are not to blame Peyton Sawyer."

"I know…" I say, still partially convinced that Lucas was in this hospital because of me.

"He used to talk about you when you guys were younger. In junior high, he was convinced that he was going to marry you even though you had never said a word to him." She says, laughing, which causes a laugh to bubble out from me as well.

That must have done something, because he started to move his hand in that moment, moaning a bit as he was getting out of his deep sleep.

I smiled when he opened his eyes, and I smiled when the first thing he said was my name.

"I leave you two alone and go grab the doctor, and Lucas… just so you know… I completely approve." Karen says, walking out of the room, leaving the pair alone for the first time since the championship party at the café.

"God Lucas, you scared me."

"I'm not goin' anywhere blondie…"

**The breath before the kiss, and the fear before the phrase**

I hate and love Brooke Davis all at the same time in this moment. I hate her for making a spectacle of this whole thing in the middle of the party, but I love her for giving me the pressure to jump into whatever the hell this is with Lucas Scott.

Our lips met and I could tell that I had surprised him. He didn't respond at first, probably freaked out that I just grabbed him and kissed him the way I did, and then his lips were soft and his touch was gentle. It was the most perfect thing that I had ever felt.

And I ran.

I had to get away from everyone. Nathan. The basketball team. Brooke. I wish they hadn't been there for what just happened. I didn't even know what I felt for him, so I surely didn't want the entire basketball team and cheerleading squad to see me try and figure it out.

When he finds me by the swings I'm embarrassed, and I tell him that if it was a game I definitely want to play again, which I know shows him that it wasn't a game for me. It wasn't anything like a game for me.

"Seriously, what was that?"

"I don't know. I don't know what it was and I don't know what I want it to be."

"Peyton, you're amazing."

"No, I'm not, and I don't need you or anyone else thinking that."

"Why?"

"Lucas, I've got so much baggage in my life. You don't want this."

"What if I said that I still do, baggage and all?" he says, looking me in the eye so I understand that he really does mean it when he says that.

"Then I say that we should sit and talk for a while."

**Have you ever felt this way…**

"So what was with the blond Scott tonight?" Brooke asks me as I'm changing out of my cheerleading outfit and into pajamas for our movie night.

"What do you mean?" I ask, knowing exactly what she means.

"Your art matters? What did he mean by that?"

"I don't know." I say coming out of the closet to catch a glimpse of her raise eyebrow, "Brooke, I don't know. He and I just talked about some stuff when I went to pick up my car today. That's all."

"And you magically convinced him to come back and play for the team? Must have been some talk and really good action."

"Brooke, it's not like that. I'm with Nathan."

"Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts."

"You don't know what you're talking about… I'm going to go downstairs and pop some popcorn."

"Whatever." She says curling up on my bed with a magazine while I march down the stairs.

She was right. It was something. The second he told me my art mattered and that it was what got him to that game tonight, I felt it from the core of me. It was this feeling that I could only describe as perfectly fantastic.

The brunette Scott boy didn't stand a chance now.

**There you are sitting in the garden. Clutching my coffee, callin' me sugar. You called me sugar…**

"Come sit with me, Peyton…"

"Lucas, there is too much that we've got to get ready for this."

"Peyton… she's fine. She's got it all, sugar."

I lift an eyebrow at that, "Sugar… really? Eighteen years of marriage and the stupid nicknames come out now?"

"Didn't sound right, did it?" I shake my head. "Just come sit with me, Peyton."

He spreads his arms out, creating what I know is the perfect pocket for my body to fit and snuggle into his chest on the bench in our backyard.

"You okay?" he asks, knowing that this was hard for me.

"She got too old too fast…"

"She did."

"We did good though, don't you think? She turned out great?" I ask, and the look he gives me with his head tucked above mine reminds me of a time where I asked him if our kid was going to be great and I was going to be a good mother.

"Yup, and you are an excellent mother." He says, smiling because he read my mind once again.

I kiss him then, knowing that nothing could possibly top this feeling.

"Seriously… you guys need to stop that, cause I don't need any siblings that are eighteen years younger than me."

"Ha ha." I say, deadpan, sitting up out of Lucas' arms. "You ready?"

"Yeah, and Aunt Brooke just got here… so let's hit the road."

I wipe at my eyes and catch the brooding look from my daughter who grows into her father more and more each day.

"Mom, you seriously can't be crying. We're still here. I'm still home. It's just college."

"Sawyer, I'm your mother and I can cry if I want to…"

**Have you ever wished for an endless night…**

**Lassoed the moon and the stars, and pulled that rope tight…**

"Mom, seriously, you are crazy!"

"If I'm crazy then you've got a lot to be worried about, cause you and your father were the ones who made me this way."

"I love how you don't throw in Anna's name in the mix."

"You were the first one to come along, so I blame it all on you."

She smiles my smile from her spot on the living room floor. Her bridesmaids are scattered around, girls that I saw grow up in my backyard from the time that they were five on up. Karen, Brooke, and Haley are on the sofa, and I just take a moment to watch my life.

The younger girls make a comment about Mark, her fiancé, that sends Sawyer blushing and I find myself asking when she turned into this beautiful woman. Graduated college, found the love of her life, and now she's leaving us to make her life with him down state.

I hear her giggle and just pray for a few more hours of her just being Sawyer Scott…

**Have you ever held your breath, and asked yourself, "Will it ever get better than tonight…tonight…."**

Our twenty fifth anniversary was a party to behold. Everyone came in from out of town and all around Tree Hill to celebrate the marriage that Brooke says everyone saw coming in high school.

Twenty five years of laughter, tears, joy, sadness, heartbreak, and pure love.

It was the last bit of our anniversary that solidified why I loved the man I married, him pulling me away from the car and guiding me out to the Comet. The Comet, which had seen more repairs than we care to list and had more issues than we would like to vent about. But he started driving, our party still going on without us.

I wonder for a moment what our guests will think until he pulls around a familiar curve and parks the car next to a lake that has seen so much of our relationship.

"Need some healing?" I joke with him, remembering coming out our senior year in high school to this very spot.

"No, I just wanted to take a minute away with my wife. After all it is our anniversary… all those people decided to join us."

"You know how Brooke gets with parties." I tell him, and he is fully aware.

"I do, and I also know that our daughters definitely helped her with the planning of this one."

"Sawyer's pregnant…" I blurt out, waiting for a reaction from him and only getting a smile in return.

"What do you think?"

"Hmm?"

"You think it can get better than this?"

"The two of us together in the end, about to be grandparents, celebrating our twenty fifth wedding anniversary?"

"Don't forget the part about the two of us still being madly in love with each other." He says, kissing my cheek as I turn to look up at the stars of the night.

"I do still love you, Lucas Scott… with everything I have, I love you."

"And I will love you and those chickeny legs til the day I die, Peyton Scott."

"Really?"

"Always."

Okay, so that was it. Keep us going through the dry spell of Leyton fic. I hope that you enjoyed the concept and were able to follow it. Let me know what you thought about it!


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